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1.1.4-Kingedmundsroyalmurder
Brick!club: of law, justice, and the places where those diverge So first off, sorry this is super late. It’s technically tomorrow here and I know other people have started posting their chapter 5 stuff, but I was both busy and super tired today so I didn’t get to this chapter until now. On a similar note, I’m going to try to make this coherent and as logical as possible but I may fail at that, so I apologize in advance. Anyway, the chapter. In this chapter we continue to follow the Bishop through his life and this time we’re focused on how he interprets and interacts with the law and also on his actions rather than his words. Like everyone else I appreciate his snark, but it’s all been pointed out already so I’ll refrain from posting examples. But I love all of it, including the bit that’s just flat out Hugo being pointy about how people do Christianity. (Which, sidenote, is a piece of social criticism that applies just as much now as it did at the time.) I also liked the bit where he refers to the visiting preacher as being eloquent enough, which, given what he’s said about M. Bienvenu, seems like damning with faint praise. (Sentence: “Il fut assez éloquent.”) As we move on from the part of the chapter that consists of M. Bienvenu being snarky to the part of the chapter that consists of him being pointed in his commentary we find the speech about poverty and taxation. One sentence that really jumped out at me was: “Dieu donne l’air aux hommes, la loi le leur vend.” (God gives air to men, the law sells it to them.) It’s not a particularly profound statement, and frankly it’s the kind of think you can probably get out of any college age anti-capitalist (who think they’re being very original and deeply amusing in saying that), but it’s clever and on point anyway. I do wonder what he’s actually seeking to accomplish with this speech. Is he just raising awareness? Is he asking for donations to help people pay their taxes? Is he directing this towards the law makers and going, “guys, this is not cool”? Normally he seems to be good at both outlining a problem and then providing a solution so I’m curious. So what I understand of the Bishop’s philosophy is this: we are all sinners and we are all tempted and the only way to manage this is to avoid temptation as long as possible so that when we do give in we do so with the grace of God. Does that sound right to the more religiously literate around here? Again, I appreciate his focus on education here, as well as his conviction that anyone can be educated and rise above their station in life. Though I will point out that at one point the narrative goes “Il n’était pas assez ignorant pour être absolument indifférent” (He was not ignorant enough to be absolutely indifferent) when talking about the murderer and I have to wonder what exactly Hugo means by that. Is anyone ignorant enough to be indifferent to their own death? Honestly indifference towards death strikes me as an enlightened position, not an ignorant one. I’m not sure what to make of this sentence at all. Knowing Hugo it’s probably more about how education raises you up and expands your mind, but it almost reads more like a condemnation of those who are ignorant despite the fact that he told us not four pages back that ignorance in someone is the fault of those around them. I really really like how the Bishop responds to the counterfeit case. It definitely highlights the shortcomings of the law (and possibly the corruption of those who uphold it), and the Bishop picks up on those right away. While most people are praising the magistrate’s creativity the Bishop points out that lying and forging documents are also sins and shouldn’t be let slide. I’ve never seen a guillotine, so I’ve no idea if Hugo’s extended musings on its nature are accurate or him being hyperbolic. It might also be a question of the times: the guillotine was probably a lot more striking when it was being regularly used and everyone knew it. Just after the guillotine monologue Hugo says this: “La sérénité presque violente du moment funèbre avait disparu” (The almost violent serenity of the funeral moment had vanished.) I just like the juxtaposition of violent serenity, which makes it clear that the Bishop had to work for it. The last thing I highlighted in the chapter was this sentence: “Il savait que la croyance est saine.” (He knew that faith was sane/healthy.) Having lived through the revolution and the subsequent Terror, the Bishop was no doubt well aware of how faith was seen by the revolutionaries (not well; there’s a reason the French are so violently opposed to religion in their government even now) and he seems to be almost defiantly proving them wrong. He’s also tapping into the fact that we as a species tend to gravitate towards faith of some kind or another and it really does seem to have noticeable benefits.